


Time and Again

by Tiresias



Series: Time and Again [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Because he's stupid and doesn't listen to Rose, Evil Science, Original Character - Freeform, Rose certainly doesn't know, Sam wins all the things because he is awesome, She was kidnapped before all that happened, The Avengers!, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Time Travel, Weirdness, Who are they?, and does it matter?, backwards or forwards?, but happy endings, but it's minor and non-graphic and over soon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6853186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiresias/pseuds/Tiresias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky meets Rose for the first time in 1944.  Rose meets Bucky for the first time in 1956.  She was born in 1989.  Evil Science and Time Travel make it hard to get to know each other, especially when they meet out of order, and one of them can't even remember when they have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1944

‘Always giving me your jacket,’ the girl pants as Bucky drapes it over her after he stumbles down the steep curve of the hollow. 

It’s an odd statement to make, but it’s drowned out by the greater oddity of finding a naked English speaking girl on a mountainside somewhere near the Lithuanian-Polish border. And oh yeah, the only Americans over here are there to fight Nazis, so…?

‘What are you doing here?’ Bucky says in shock, ‘You gotta get out of here, you can’t be here.’ 

For some reason that starts the girl laughing. Bucky’s got sisters, and he knows women, but this sort of laughter sounds closer to the type he heard out of his fellow POW’s when he told them to just hold on, keep holding on, they’d be rescued soon and it would be all right.

Of course he knew there would be no rescue. They knew it too. It’s why they laughed.

The girl curls up under his jacket, not even trying to get it between the frozen earth and her bare skin. A glint of silver catches his eye, a heavy cuff of metal worked around her wrist with a strangely delicate wire trailing back into the hillside. He reaches out to tug at it but the girl reaches up surprisingly quickly and stops his hand.

‘Don’t do that, please. I don’t belong here, remember?’

Remember?

Bucky thinks he would remember seeing something like this if it had happened before. The only holes in his memory are mere pinpricks—lost hours or minutes or seconds while they stabbed him with needles and tore him apart with pain.

He’s starting to think this girl’s got more problems than just being far away from home and in the middle of a war zone.

‘Let me take a look at it,’ he says as soothingly as he can. The cold air bites at him and he can’t imagine what it feels like to her. ‘I’ve gotta get you outta here, it isn’t safe.’

The girl shakes her head. Her eyes, which were unfocused and far-off before, had sharpened and she looks at him with startling clarity.

‘We haven’t met before, have we.’ It’s more statement than question. ‘What’s the date?’ She asks with a weary laugh.

How long have you been here lady, that you need to know the date? 

‘March 12.’

‘Mm, yes, but the year?’

The year?

‘1944.’

‘’44,’ she whispers in surprise, then darts her gaze up to his face. She stares at him worriedly. ‘I should have guessed, what with—‘ here she gestures vaguely to himself, ‘that and all. I’m lucky you speak English at all, really. World war two, should have guessed,’ she says quietly to herself.

This isn’t making any sense at all to Bucky. Of course it’s the war, what else would it be? Feels like it’s been going on forever and not just the two years he’s been over here.

The girl sees the look on his face and makes a valiant effort at a meager smile. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Bucky Barnes, ma’am.’ Bucky says. No reason not to be polite, his ma’d smack him hard if he were otherwise.

Her eyes widen with shock. ‘Bucky Barnes? But—‘ she looks around frantically. ‘You can’t be here, you have to, I didn’t know! Please—‘ she cuts herself off. ‘There’s no time.’ She sits up quickly, wrapping an arm around herself as she uses the other to toss his jacket back to him.

‘Ma’am—‘

‘There’s no time.’ She insists. ‘You have to get back above the hollow, go now!’

Bucky refuses to move. ‘Hell no, I’m not leaving you here. Even if I have to give you all my clothes and carry you back to camp naked as the day I was born I won’t leave you here!’

She must believe he means it because she whimpers in frustration. ‘I only have five minutes, you understand? When time’s up I’m gone, and everything in this hollow is dead—you have to move! Please!’

Bucky doesn’t believe her. But he can almost see the ticking clock behind her eyes. Whatever’s going to happen it won’t take long and maybe once it doesn’t happen she won’t stop him from helping her. He tries to hand the jacket back to her but she throws it at his head.

‘Go!’

‘At least let me know your name?’

The girl closes her eyes and presses her lips tightly together as if pleading for patience. Bucky’s used to that look.

‘Rose. I’m Rose. Now go!’

Bucky goes. Just to the top edge of the hollow, no further. This really grates on him, you know? He might not be as much of a stand-up guy as Steve, but he’s never left a woman who needed help and if there ever was a woman who needed his help…

It’s only there, from the vantage point at the top of the hollow that Bucky notices something he didn’t have time to see before: the hollow is entirely empty. All around is thick vegetation and forest, even in the wintertime—but not there. There the ground is as sterile and empty as if it were bare rock.

Alarm jumps in his heart.

‘Hey—‘ he starts to say, but he’s interrupted by a flicker of light in the air that starts to fill the hollow, the brightness growing until he can barely see the girl–Rose. She’s staring straight at him, though, and gives him a forlorn little wave as the light crescendos into a brilliant flash that blinds him and sends him stumbling back a step.

When Bucky finally manages to clear his vision he lurches forward and clenches his jaw when he sees how the hollow is now empty. Empty of everything, just like she said. Even the imperfect edges of the hollow have been trimmed neatly into a perfect half circle centered around where she’d been.

Rose.

Bucky scrubs a hand across his face. He’d almost think he’d dreamt it if not for the way the hollow was smoking slightly in the cool air and that he was shivering from having his jacket off for so long. He shrugs it back on then finds a stick to poke at the hollow. 

Nothing happens.

The stick doesn’t disintegrate or catch flame or melt into a puddle of goo. None of those options would have surprised him, this world’s become a funny place in the last few years, even to someone who used to love reading science fiction when he could get his hands on a book. 

But this…

Rose.

Bucky wishes he knew what to do about this. He was due back at camp, he was just supposed to be scouting around before they all sacked out, making sure no one else was around. Well, he grimaced to himself, no one was around anymore. 

Aww, to hell with caution, he thinks as he strides straight into the hollow again to stand right where Rose had been. He waits there, for what he isn’t sure, but he waits.

Waits.


	2. Chapter 2

2008

Rose had never been so scared in her whole life. She wasn’t even sure she’d experienced fear before this point—not the way it felt now. Not the way it screamed through all her muscles and hitched its way through her lungs and stole her breath before she could even breathe it. She’d grown dizzy with the fear, so dizzy she was sure she’d passed out a couple times, but there was no way to tell. Her concrete cell was just as dark and threatening to her eyes as it had appeared when they first threw her in there.

_They_. Who were _they_?

She didn’t know. She didn’t _know._

There had been a man in her rooms, a dark figure who had woken her with a bruising hand across her mouth who had forced her up and dragged her past the lifeless bodies of her parents as they lay bleeding on the hotel carpet. She had tried to scream, tried to fight—but he was too strong, too strong—

Rose realized that she was shivering and rocking in the farthest corner of her cell, teeth chattering with panic and despair.

Her parents were dead—

They were—

Dead—

Her shivers turned into heavy shuddering sobs that she couldn’t keep quiet, not even if it were to save her own life. Rose screamed into the scant comfort of her own hard knees as her mind whirled and plunged like a ship on stormy seas.

Her parents were—

The metal door to her cell clanged open and two guards rushed in to grab her by her unresisting arms.

They let her legs trail behind her when she couldn’t manage to stay on her feet. She scrabbled desperately but their grip was unrelenting and her muscles were weak with panic. They dragged her into a cold looking medical laboratory, all tile and gleaming surfaces. The guards strapped her down onto a stainless steel table and left her for the gaggle of doctors that crowded around her.

Rose tossed her head from side to side but the doctors paid her struggles no heed: they poked and prodded at her in a way that suggested they didn’t even see her, she might as well have been a dead body laid out on that table for all they cared.

They measured everything that could be measured, muttering to themselves in a language that wasn’t English (Rose didn’t speak Polish, or was that Russsian?) as they brought out new and different instruments that Rose had no idea what they did. Eventually her fear and panic reached such a peak that she slid into a fugue state where her muscles were as limp as a doll’s and her mind was dull and silent.

Her parents—

They were–?

Where…?

A bright light flashed in her face and she moaned in confusion. What was happening?

She could feel the straps being loosened around her but all she could do was whimper when she was hauled upright again. Her head lolled between her painfully outstretched arms as she saw the ground slide by underneath her, slide, slide slide…

She was dumped in another room, a much bigger one filled with machines and scorching lights. There was a silver ring, about twenty feet in diameter, set into the exact center of the room. Absolutely nothing was inside of it, and nothing came close to touching it. 

Except Rose. They’d put her right in the middle of it. 

Panting, she tried to rise to her knees but a forceful boot to her back slammed her down onto the floor. She cried out, but was ignored as someone she couldn’t see grabbed her right hand and forced her arm straight. She cried out again in pain and fear as something hard and tight was clamped over her wrist.

What…?

The pressure on her back was lifted, but it took a breathless minute for Rose to turn her head to look at her right hand. There was a silver manacle attached mercilessly to her wrist, with a strange trailing silver wire that led out of the circle and was attached to the largest cluster of machines. 

Scientists buzzed around eagerly and Rose would have puked if she hadn’t already emptied her stomach several times, enough that the last time all she’d been able to do was dry heave in anguish.

Her brain slowly started to reboot and all her limbs shook in fearful confusion.

What was all this, and what was going to happen to her?

As if her silent questions had summoned him, one of the scientists, the oldest that she’d seen, walked to the very edge of the circle within her field of vision and cleared his throat.

‘Tell us everything that you can see,’ he said in mildly accented English as he gracefully waved a ‘go-ahead’ to another scientist that she couldn’t see.

‘What?’ Rose managed to whisper as she shook her head to clear it. None of this made any sense, none of this—

There was a sizzling crackle as the great machines were turned on, electricity dancing through the circuits and wires as they hummed to life. The voices of the scientists were louder yet, shouting to be heard above the noise of their creation. Rose wanted to put both her hands over her ears and hide in the darkness behind her own eyelids—

This isn’t happening, none of this is happening—

My parents are—

They’re not—

Rose screamed as electric pain arced into her arm from the silver thread attached to her manacle. Her eyes flew wide open but all she could see was lights—flickering lights—

The pain crescendoed with the light and then it all turned black, black, black…

 

Rose screamed as she bolted upright, disturbing the group of scientists that had gathered around her.

What…?

She jerked her arm and was dismayed to still find herself tethered to the silver wire. One of the scientists was running his fingers over it bemusedly, absentmindedly tugging it as he followed it away from her. His excited shouts drew the other scientists over to him but they made Rose’s head spin.

What was going on?

Someone babbled at her in a language she didn’t understand. She shook her head dazedly. Where was the man who’d spoken English? He’d been right here…

Rose did her best to clear her aching head and looked around in confusion. She was in the same room as she had been before. It was large and made entirely out of concrete…but there was no silver circle inset into the floor and the machines…

There were no machines. Or at least, not the same machines that had been there a second ago. 

Rose clutched her limbs around herself as nausea surged and a creeping horror tingled in her shoulders and up her neck. Something wasn’t right…

She was so out of it she didn’t even see the man until he grabbed her and shook her, yelling in her face. She shook her head weakly.

‘ _I don’t understand…_ ’

‘English?’ Another voice spoke up. ‘You speak English?’

The cluster of men surrounding her pulled back and Rose could see the scientist who had spoken to her before. His manner was authoritative and clearly he was someone important, judging from the way everyone had immediately followed his unspoken orders. Rose blinked at him. There was something different about him…

The man took a few steps closer and crouched down in front of her.

‘You are English?’

Rose jerked at her manacle to the dismay and dislike of all the men present. If she could only think…

‘American.’ She whispered. ‘Why…why did you do this? Why am I _here_? What–?’

Rose was cut off as a flicker of light caused all the men to step back.

Oh no. Oh no no no no…

The man who had spoken English to her studied her face intently as his fellow scientists rushed about in excitement. He stood smoothly and began to back away. Some of the other men watching him followed suit, but the rest stood nearby to Rose as the strange lights continued to flicker. 

As the lights increased, so did the feeling of electricity in the manacle around her wrist. Rose moaned as the pain increased and it was only this sound that seemed to break the entranced scientists free from their observation of the lights. They shared a look and began to back away but it was too late. The light was dense now and as it covered them they screamed in pain and terror as the lights grew brighter and brighter until all Rose could see was light and all she could feel was pain—

 

Rose gasped and shook on the hard concrete floor as the scream of the machines quieted to a distant whine. Scientists rushed about, shouting at each other jubilantly as they waved papers and read-outs at each other. 

None of them looked at her. There was no sign of the two scientists who had been in the circle with her.

Am I going mad? She thought to herself, in a daze. Is any of this real?

The machines shut down with a final angry growl, and then—only then—did the older scientist who had spoken to her before step into the circle and motion for two guards to haul her upright. She hung between them, completely spent, too tired even for tears.

‘Now tell me,’ The scientist ordered. ‘What did you see?

Rose shook her head vaguely. If none of this was real than what she saw wasn’t real, so none of it mattered—

The scientist made a noise of disgust and nodded at the soldiers. They lifted Rose and shook her, painfully hard. She cried out. It hurt less than what had happened to her before, but the surprise of it knocked her out of her confusion. 

‘What did you see?’ The scientist asked again, fiercely.

‘I saw…’ Rose whispered.

‘Yes, speak up!’

‘I was here.’ Rose said in confusion. ‘I didn’t go anywhere. There was…’ Rose slowly lifted her head from where it had fallen to the side and looked up at the scientist. He looked strangely familiar…

‘You were there,’ She said slowly. ‘You were younger.’ Rose shook her head. Of course he hadn’t been there, of course he couldn’t have been younger. She hadn’t gone anywhere. Nothing had happened. Nothing—

The scientist’s eyes lit up with an unholy fire that seared at her until she looked away. None of this was real, none of this was real…

‘There were two of my colleagues in the circle with you.’ Rose’s stomach lurched at his words. No… ‘What happened to them?’ His tone was greedy, cruel. He didn’t care that they were most likely dead. He wanted to know how it happened.

Rose shivered and shook her head. The scientist snapped an order to the soldiers. One of them cuffed her roughly. Rose whimpered in pain.

‘I don’t know! I don’t—they were there, and then I was here—I don’t know…I don’t know–’ Rose’s chattering teeth locked tight and she moaned behind them. Nothing made sense. None of this was real.

The scientist nodded to himself in satisfaction, then barked an order to the soldiers. They stood at attention as well as they could with Rose between them and answered briskly. Rose didn’t know what they said, but it sounded enough like ‘Yes sir!’ for her to be confident that was what was said.

The scientist stalked off to confer with his associates, which turned into an argument that lasted too long for Rose to keep track of. The scientist that talked with her clearly wanted something that a few of the others were reluctant to do. Eventually he won the argument, waved an arm at the soldiers holding her, and barked another order. They dropped her abruptly and made haste out of the circle.

Rose had a horrible feeling about what that meant…

She was proven right when they started the machines up again, the dangerous humming vibrating up into her arm until everything was pain again, pain and light–


	3. Chapter 3

2010

The Soldier broke into the abandoned base and used his metal hand to crimp the now broken door shut against the raging blizzard outside. His orders were to return immediately but even his advanced biology would have trouble surviving this. 

His handlers wouldn’t like this delay, they didn’t care if he was injured or broken, but one of his primary orders was to survive—survive and serve again.

The Soldier followed his orders, and didn’t think about the punishment awaiting him when he returned.

Survive, and serve again.

The base was empty, cold, ruined. There was no power, no lights, but the Soldier didn’t need them. 

He had never been here before.

His feet knew every turning until he ended up in a large dark room. 

He flicked on a flashlight. The room was concrete. Cavernous. Broken machines sat twisted and blackened in the corners. There was a silver ring set into the floor.

The Soldier had no idea what it was for.

The Soldier very carefully stayed outside it. It was important.

A quick circuit of the room revealed nothing. Wind soughed somewhere in the base but here there was no sound. No movement. No light.

Flicker.

The Soldier walked back to the silver circle and stood with his toes only inches away. He turned his flashlight off. 

Flicker.

The Soldier had never been here before. The Soldier had never seen this strange flicker in the air before.

The Soldier’s coat was in his hand before he could think about the action. The lights flickered again, stronger this time, but wrong somehow.

Wrong?

The flickers pulsed and grew stronger, the taste of electricity in the air causing the Soldier’s stomach to plummet. It tasted like the chair…

The light in the air was constant now, almost blinding, but the Soldier could see a prone figure at the center of the circle. It didn’t move.

The lights began to fade, and the figure in the center of the circle disappeared as if it had never been. Soon all was dark again and the only sound was that of the Soldier’s breath.

He turned away and shrugged his coat back over his shoulders. He’d find a different room to sleep in tonight until the storm passed.


	4. Chapter 4

2008 and 1956

 

The moon was the first thing Rose noticed, gleaming through the blackness. Her body shook with pain and weariness but she forced it upright.

Where…?

She was in a forest, it was dark and cold with only the light of the moon to offer scant revelation to the scene. She was at the bottom of a hollow where nothing grew. She lay naked on cold hard dirt but she could vaguely sense wisps of steam rising out of the ground. 

Rose shook her head to clear it, but nothing was clear. How was she here…? She had been—

She raised her right hand to touch her head, but before it got far there was a pull on it. Her stomach lurched and kicked. No—

The faint moonlight through the trees gleamed against the silver manacle on her wrist. The silver thread attached to it was still there, still trailing off to the outer edge of the circle—

No—

She was in a hollow now—

How–?

What was going on?

Rose yanked desperately at the wire. It didn’t budge, but she could still feel an ominous humming that vibrated through it, as if it were still attached to those machines…

A sudden thump caused her to shriek and scramble desperately backwards but the manacle and the wire would only allow her to move so far. Firm hands caught her and before she could make another sound something warm and heavy was draped around her shoulders.

It was a coat. Rose clutched it to herself and tried to look up at whoever it was, but the forest was dark and she could only make out the slant of his cheekbones and the sharp curve of his jaw. He was wearing dark clothing and he had a gun at his side.

Another soldier here at the orders of the scientists?

‘Who—who are you?’ Rose blurted out.

The man cocked his head but didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t speak English. 

‘Th-thank you,’ Rose stammered from the cold and exhaustion. ‘For your jacket.’

Rose didn’t think that the man would reply but he surprised her. ‘You don’t belong here.’ His voice was low and gravelly as if he didn’t speak often.

‘What?’

‘Five minutes,’ he said, as if that explained everything, or as if he was confused himself at how he knew that.

There was a muffled sound from beyond the hollow and the man tensed. Not making a sound, he pulled a knife from a sheath on his hip and ghosted up the side of the hollow and out of Rose’s view. Rose tried to control her breathing but it spiraled out of control as she heard a desperate gurgle and a soft groan, then a panicked shout and a gunshot. 

She huddled under the warm jacket the man had provided and thought about putting her hands over her ears. What was going on? Was any of this real? How had she gotten to this forest, and how was she still attached to the wire? What was the wire attached to?

A dark figure suddenly appeared at the top of the hollow and Rose flinched. As he drew closer Rose could smell something that tainted the air with a faint copper and iron tang.

Blood.

‘Who…who were they?’ Rose whispered. There was a long pause.

‘Enemies,’ the man finally said. He tugged at his jacket and Rose reluctantly relinquished it. She shivered as the cold air hit her again. He turned away and walked back to the top of the hollow. The lights began to flicker again and Rose wanted to cry.

‘Rose.’ He said suddenly. ‘Your name is Rose.’

She tensed, more startled than she could ever say by hearing him say her name, but the lights flickered again and she knew she was out of time.

The humming grew more pronounced and electric pain once again arced through her as flickers of light filled the hollow and then all she could see was light—


	5. Chapter 5

2009

The Soldier’s orders were clear. The base must be eradicated. 

Entry was assured. The guards at the entrance…not a problem. The Soldier killed them before they could raise an alarm. Systematically the Soldier combed the corridors of the base, killing all who he found. He did not even need to think of where to go next, the series of rooms and hallways unfolding themselves in his mind like a map he’d seen many times. His feet never faltered and his shots never missed. 

The base was large, but he had no back-up. The Soldier needed no back-up.

All injuries were within acceptable parameters when the Soldier reached the main laboratory, a large concrete structure deep within the base. There were few soldiers here, and he had already killed most of the scientists who had tried to make their escape. Only a dedicated few were left, shouting to each other and working furiously at their machines. A strange flickering light filled the center of a silver circle inset into the floor but the Soldier bypassed it as he strode toward the last remaining recipients of his orders.

The scientists tried to shout orders at him as they died, but his previous orders were clear: kill everyone. Destroy everything.

The strange flickering light in the center of the circle hurt his eyes and made his brain ache, but the Soldier ignored it. It was irrelevant. 

He planted explosive charges under each machine and detonated them after he had left the room. The strange humming that had filled the air died and the only flickering light in the chamber was that of flames.

The Soldier walked the corridors of the base again, checking all rooms and guaranteeing the death of everyone who had been here.

It was barely two hours later that he met up with his extraction team.

‘Mission Completed,’ he told his handler.

The Soldier did not fail.


	6. Chapter 6

2008

No one ever explained anything to her, but Rose started to put the pieces together on her own.

1\. She was traveling through time, but not space. She always ended up in the forest after that first time of landing in the base.

2\. Nothing could survive the trip—except her and the silver manacle.

3\. She was only given five minutes whenever they sent her. She couldn’t be sure since she didn’t speak the language, but it seemed like they were trying to extend the time—and failing.

4\. The pain of traveling through time was excruciating, her recovery often eating up most of her time ‘whenever’ she ended up.

5\. She must never let them know she’d seen Bucky Barnes.

The scientist who spoke English was always pestering her about what time she ended up in—so far, it seemed to be random. That was something else the scientists were working on: they wanted to be able to send her to a specific time, but so far it hadn’t been working.

Or maybe it had. It was hard to tell when the place she ended up was empty forest with no way to distinguish the year.

Except for the time she’d met Bucky Barnes. But she lied to the scientists, lied her heart out and pretended to be weary and dazed from the pain of the transfer and just mumbled something about trees and winter. It was cold there. Some snow on the ground. Something else? No, nothing else.

They believed her.

Rose wasn’t sure what they could have done even if she’d told them about Bucky Barnes, but…well. You just didn’t betray a national icon, even if he was dead.

A prickle of unease ran through her.

He was dead, right?

Because there was that strange man in the dark she’d met first, the one who gave her his jacket and said her name. The only other person she’d met so far was Bucky Barnes, but that man in the forest hadn’t seemed much like him. He was colder. Quieter. Scarier.

Rose didn’t know what to think so she tried not to.

It was hard to tell how much time passed because she was never sure if the five minutes she spent on the other side of time was matched in the present. But every so often—perhaps once a day? Maybe? They pried the silver manacle off her wrist and shoved her back in her cell with a meager amount of food. Her right hand always throbbed with pain and when she had enough light to look at her wrist there were strange impressions and curled designs burned into her skin.

It would almost have been pretty, if, you know, it hadn’t been forcibly done to her by evil scientists.

Rose did her best not to think about her family but she was always cold and tired and frequently hungry, so that never worked. She cried herself to sleep more often than not but she never passed out from fear again.

Even the fantastic and terrible can soon become normal.

Rose dreamed of escape but the only time she was ever alone was in her cell, or on the other side of time. The manacle was sealed impossibly tight around her wrist and she had no way of opening it or of severing the silver wire.

And even if she did, she’d still be naked in the middle of a forest in who knows what year.

One time they’d sent her back—much further back than she thought she’d ever been before, because the trees were small and slightly strange and the air smelled different. 

How long ago would she have to have gone for that to happen?

A thousand years?

Five thousand?

Fifty? A million?

And what if that wasn’t the past, but the future? How could she ever tell the difference?

The scientists hadn’t known what to make of what she told them, but she couldn’t explain it any better than she had.

She felt like she was betraying something by cooperating with them, but she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t want to die, and she was sure they’d kill her if she showed any signs of rebellion. They knew their machine worked, now. She’d proved that. She’d even fulfilled the time paradox that had occurred even before she was ever in Europe—when the lead scientist had spoken to her and identified her as American.

Rose shivered inwardly at the implication that if she hadn’t appeared to the scientists like she had, they would never have chosen her for the experiment and her parents would still be alive—

Rose forced her mind onto another path. Someday a mistake would be made. Someday she’d figure out how to open the manacle and run away.

Someday she would be free.


	7. Chapter 7

2008

The Soldier was given a gun and an address.

Kidnap the girl, he was ordered. Kill the parents. Make it look like a break-in gone wrong.

No witnesses. Understood Soldier?

Understood.

The hotel’s security was a single video camera in the lobby and a man at the front desk. Both were easy to avoid.

The Soldier was capable of jimmying the door to the room open without leaving a trace, but he didn’t.

Make it look like a break-in gone wrong. So the Soldier was deliberately sloppy, but not enough to get him noticed within his time table.

In and out in less than five minutes.

The Soldier ghosted into the front room: there were two, one connecting to the other. The girl was asleep on the small bed, light from the street slanting through the window and illuminating her face.

She was…familiar.

The Soldier felt himself pause. Conflicting orders argued in his head. That had never happened before.

Current orders were to kill the parents, grab the girl, and get out unseen within the time frame allowed.

But there were older orders he could…not remember, no—but he felt himself waiting anyway.

He was supposed to wait.

The Soldier crouched down on his heels and studied the sleeping girl. He would wait. He knew he wouldn’t have to wait long.

How did he know that?

After several minutes of waiting in the darkened room nothing happened and the Soldier was…the Soldier could not be relieved or disappointed, the Soldier felt nothing.

But the conflicting orders were gone.

No more waiting.

The Soldier dragged the woman out of bed first, taking care that her mouth was covered and her struggles did not wake her husband prematurely. He pulled her over to the door between the two rooms as if she’d heard the break-in and was investigating.

He shot her. Her body fell in an acceptable formation.

The Soldier did the same thing with the man, his larger size and concurrently stronger struggles no match for the Soldier’s enhanced strength. He pulled him further into the room before shooting him, as if he’d tried to protect his wife before being shot.

The Soldier surveyed his work. The positioning of both the bodies was adequate.

The Soldier had been moving quickly and using a silenced pistol but the noise was still loud. The girl was stirring.

He walked over to the bed and clamped his hand over her mouth as she awoke in fear and confusion. Her struggles were easy to contain, and even more so when she collapsed after seeing the bodies of her parents. The Soldier wrapped an arm around her waist to lift her, while keeping the other clamped over her mouth to silence her moans.

There could be no witnesses.

He had taken longer than his estimated time table, but when questioned as to the reason the Soldier could give no clear answer.

Conflicting orders, he said. His handlers were displeased. 

A malfunction, they sneered. He was damaged.

The Soldier sat in the chair. His breathing accelerated. He was broken. This would fix him.

 _It will hurt_ …the back of the Soldier’s brain whimpered.

Irrelevant.

The mask full of electricity came down over his face and the Soldier screamed.

Survive, and serve again.


	8. Chapter 8

2009

One of the scientists was screaming at her.

Rose’s head swum and her teeth chattered from the pain. Her reentry had been particularly painful this time, damned if she knew why.

Even through the pain Rose felt like rolling her eyes at the scientist. He’d hardly stopped to draw breath since she arrived and she was waiting for him to realize that he was asking her questions in a language she didn’t speak. 

It would be funny once he realized it. Sort of. Well, funny to her at least. Genuine moments of humor were few and far between for Rose, so she took them when she could.

The scientist screaming at her obviously didn’t get the memo because instead of realizing what he was doing wouldn’t work, he started kicking her in between angry shouts. The sharp shocks of pain were different than what the machines did to her, but Rose had become accustomed to pain. She had the idle thought that she might at least get some interesting bruises out of this, before one of the blows landed perilously close to her kidney and she mewled involuntarily and curled up even tighter.

There was the sound of running boots and stern voices and the kicking stopped. Rose uncurled enough to see that the angry scientist was being held back by a soldier, while the head scientist reamed him out. 

Rose sighed. So back to normal, then.

They all left the circle and Rose prepared herself for another trip through time. She just hoped it wouldn’t hurt as much as coming back had last time.

The machines whined and the lights grew and Rose bit her lip as pure pain sung through every nerve of her body and turned everything white, white—

 

There was a thump of boots in the hollow when Rose came back to herself, and a genuine smile formed on her lips before she realized it.

‘Always giving—‘ she started to say, but cut herself off when she had the unwelcome shock of seeing someone other than Bucky in front of her.

He looked young, with heavy canvas clothes in practical shades of brown. But whereas Bucky’s first instinct had been to cover her naked body and take care of her, this man couldn’t seem to stop staring. And not just out of surprise that he found a naked girl in the middle of the forest—no. His gaze quickly turned from confusion to something hot and assessing, like his eyes were tracing paths he was sure his hands would follow shortly.

Rose shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

‘Hello?’ She tried. The odds of him speaking English were astronomically low, but she’d had a strange amount of luck with that so far. ‘Do you speak English?’

His eyes flicked to hers for a second before he dismissed what she said as unimportant and went back to staring at her. Rose felt unease creeping up her spine. Time ticked down in the back of her head. In less than five minutes he probably couldn’t do that much harm to her, but she didn’t relish what might happen if he stayed too long in the circle.

‘You need to leave,’ Rose licked her mouth and swallowed dryly. The man took it as encouragement and came closer. Rose shook her head, starting to panic a little. ‘It’s dangerous—you have to go!’ She flung out an arm to shoo him away. He cocked his head at that but he came closer still.

A voice from the edge of the hollow made him pause and Rose jump. She hadn’t noticed anyone else was there. The two men exchanged words, the one beyond the hollow sounding worried, while the one staring at Rose was clearly dismissive.

‘You have to go,’ she begged. Futilely.

He reached a hand out to grab her chin but Rose ducked away. He snarled, his pleasant features turning ugly with anger. He reached for her again and Rose gritted her teeth as he gripped her shoulder hard enough to bruise. He pushed her backwards to the ground and leered lasciviously at her naked body as Rose tried to reassure herself that it would all be over soon.

Just another minute and she would be gone—

The man was reaching for her breast when the first flicker of light danced through the air.

What…?

It was too early, what was going on? Rose wondered. It was always five minutes, no more, no less. 

The light flared and flashed, the brightness almost appearing to gash a hole in the forest. The man in the hollow reared back in alarm and the man outside the hollow called out to him in fear but it was too late.

The lights continued to slash and flare— _it was never like this, something was wrong_ —and Rose could feel the ominous humming in the bracelet turn into a screeching vibration that seemed to be just on the edge of hearing. The silver end of the wire went loose and thrashed like a live wire, electricity arcing and sparking.

Rose flung up her hand with a scream but the pain grew even worse as the lights finally built enough to pull her away.

She tried not to think about the man in the circle with her, or how she could hear his screams echoing around her own. Nothing ever survived in the circle except for herself and the bracelet.

Maybe she would not even survive this time, Rose thought dimly as the lights continued to flare and slash, revealing the forest in pieces only to flare and take her away again. It was winter, it was summer. It was spring, it was fall. It was raining, it was snowing. The air was thick with humidity, the air was thin and made her gasp. Great heat seared her body and great cold gnawed at her flesh.

She never landed somewhen long enough to get her bearings, the ever-present pain of the transfer shrieking through her body and causing her to convulse with more agony than she’d ever felt before. She scrabbled desperately at the manacle but she couldn’t open it—she couldn’t open it—

Day became night became day became day became heat became light became dark became pain became pain pain pain—

Before Rose lost consciousness a thought glinted faintly that she had been untethered from time and now there would be no escape, no chance to run. She would be the eternal wanderer until thirst killed her and her body decayed, a corpse that would never be laid to rest.

Rest…

Agonizing pain flared through her body and Rose surrendered to the pull of time.

If the sleep of death was the only rest she could find, Rose would take it gladly.


	9. Chapter 9

2016

‘So where are we going again?’ Bucky muttered to Steve underneath Tony Stark’s loud chatter and the whine of the quinjet engines. 

The corner of Steve’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smirk but he kept his face smooth as he nodded with fake interest at whatever Tony was saying until the man turned away. ‘Lithuania. Near the border of Poland. One of Tony’s satellites picked up some strange energy readings in the mountains. Could be a Hydra base.’

Bucky shrugged. Could be. There were a lot of Hydra bases in that part of the world once upon a time.

Steve nudged his shoulder. ‘You awake yet, or do you want some of Clint’s coffee?’

Bucky pulled back in horror. ‘You trying to kill me, Steve? At least be decent and do it to my face, and not with Barton’s poison. He should be shot for what he does to coffee.’

‘Aww,’ Was Steve’s reply. ‘Don’t worry Buck. I won’t poison you. If I wanted to kill you, I’d tell Natasha to do it.’

Bucky threw back his head and laughed. It had taken the two of them a long time to be able to joke about things like this, but once Steve had relaxed he was as snarky as ever.

Tony popped his head back around from the pilot’s chair. ‘You know, I get the feeling nobody’s paying attention to the vitally important details I’m relating.’

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him. ‘You found something you don’t know what it is and you’re pissed about it,’ he deadpanned. ‘What else is new?’ Bucky was pressed close enough to Steve he could feel his shoulders shake minutely as he struggled to keep a straight face.

‘Sass,’ Tony muttered as he turned around. ‘Nothing but sass from the supersoldiers. If only America could see you now!’ he raised his voice to shout at them.

Bucky and Steve rolled their eyes in tandem. Across the aisle Sam snorted at the both of them. Bruce was oblivious, typing away at a screen near the front of the plane. ‘I’m not getting any other energy spikes, Tony. Not enough to pinpoint what’s going on down there.’

Tony cursed under his breath. ‘You have one small hole in your satellite array and it comes back to bite you in the ass.’

‘Tony Stark Problems,’ Bucky murmured to Steve, which made him snort. Bucky grinned and chuckled. Making Steve laugh was always his favorite thing to do. 

‘All right, all right, we’re almost there,’ Tony spoke up from the pilot’s chair. ‘Wakey wakey, Barton!’ Bucky was pretty sure Tony deliberately set the quinjet down with a thump just to unbalance Clint from where he was precariously napping against Natasha. He flailed his way to the floor where he hit with a groan. 

‘You all right there, Hawkguy?’ Tony asked with false solicitousness. Clint groaned again from his heap on the floor and merely raised a one-finger salute to Tony as a personal descriptor. Tony snickered.

Everyone who was sitting unbuckled from their seats and stood. Natasha nudged Clint with a foot until he was upright. Steve grabbed his shield and Bucky his weapons as the bay door slowly lowered. A gust of fresh air swirled into the quinjet—not too cold, but feeling like the tail-end of winter nonetheless. Tony stepped into his suit as everyone filed out, all except for Bruce. He was only here for the science, and would be staying behind until he got the all clear.

Bucky had seen the Hulk in action a couple times and he respected Bruce’s desire to not let that happen too often. Hell, and he thought _he_ had problems…

There was nothing but trees in sight around the quinjet, but Bucky got his rifle ready nonetheless. Nothing was ever as it seemed with Hydra.

Tony hovered tree-height in the suit, then lowered himself until he could comfortable speak to everyone. ‘Base should be just through those trees but I’m not picking up anything—not even people.’

‘Could be empty,’ Steve offered, his posture relaxed but alert.

‘The readings had to come from somewhere,’ Bruce said over their comms. 

‘Too right, snugglebear,’ Tony quipped. ‘I’ll do a flyby. If that doesn’t bring them running there’s nobody there.’

Bucky looked over at Steve to see if he was going to object but he didn’t. Steve and Tony often disagreed about strategy, but not today it seemed.

Tony wasn’t gone very long, the suit making the trip in no time at all. 

‘I’ve got nothing,’ Tony finally said.

‘We’ll do this fast,’ Steve said firmly in Captain mode. ‘Clint and Tony, hang back to cover us until the all-clear. Bucky and I’ll take point, Nat and Sam mop up behind us.’

‘If there’s tech in that base I need to be—‘ Tony started.

‘Hang back for the all-clear, Iron Man,’ Steve cut him off. ‘You’re of more use in the suit right now until we clear the base.’ Tony didn’t reply but Bucky swore he could feel him grumbling.

Steve looked over at Bucky and Bucky shrugged. He liked a straightforward plan. Steve nodded and they started walking, keeping a wary eye out for any surprises.

When they finally got a visual on the base’s entry, a cold shiver made its way up Bucky’s spine. Secret hidden base construction all looked the same, but there was something familiar about this place…

The guard posts outside the door were empty and overgrown. Unless it was some sort of elaborate camouflage, Bucky would swear the base was defunct. Steve flashed a glance at him and Bucky could see him thinking the same thing. 

As they walked past the guard posts to the slightly ajar front door Bucky felt another frisson of uneasiness run up his spine. There had been bullet holes in that guard post…

The reason for the door being ajar was soon obvious—the metal had been crimped and then torn loose from the inside. Steve barely gave it a glance as he went past it, and Bucky forced himself to do the same until it was clear the hallway was empty and no hostiles were lurking in the dark corners. 

As Sam and Natasha quickly filed in, Bucky hung back and placed his metal fingers over the rusted grooves in the door.

They matched.

‘Steve,’ Bucky clenched his jaw. ‘I think I’ve been here before.’ Steve promptly came over while Sam and Natasha took up guard positions. Bucky waggled his fingers over the grooves and Steve nodded.

‘You remember anything?’ He asked.

Bucky shook his head in frustration. ‘It…feels familiar, but—nothing more than that. Not yet.’

‘Tell me if that changes,’ Steve nodded at him. Bucky nodded back. He had so many memories from Hydra, but not all of them were clear or in order. Some were just violent flashes. Others were full-on sensory rides filled with blood and pain and cold. 

Too many were just…impressions. A street corner that shouldn’t feel familiar but did. A name that caused his hackles to rise for no reason that he could remember. Those were the most frustrating.

The four of them started the process of clearing the base. Everything was dark and empty, with the occasional skeleton turning to dust in a room or hallway. Every step Bucky took felt more and more like déjà vu, until he found himself leading with Steve at his six, clearing each room and hall like he’d been there before—

–he’d been there before—

He paused with his hand on the wall after leaving a room with four long dead bodies. 

‘Buck…’ Steve put a hand on his shoulder.

‘I did this,’ Bucky said tightly. ‘I remember I—I did this.’

‘I thought this place was Hydra?’ Sam asked.

‘It was,’ Bucky nodded to himself. Some of the memories were coming up a little clearer now. ‘This bunch here had me for a while, back before Pierce got hold of me. Hydra…didn’t always agree with itself. Warring factions. I was sent to clear this one out. Later.’

Tony spoke up from the comms. ‘You remember what they were doing here? What could have caused the energy spikes?’

‘I don’t…’ a memory unfolded in Bucky’s head. Someplace they hadn’t checked yet. ‘There was a lab. A big one.’ He straightened and pointed down the hall. ‘That way.’

‘Take the lead,’ Steve said. ‘We’ve got you.’

Bucky took a second to breathe before turning away to the darkness in front of him. It was disconcerting how easy it was to just let his feet take the turnings without his having to think about it, but Bucky let the uneasiness slide away as he focused on remaining calm and keeping his breathing steady.

It didn’t take long for them to enter the main lab, the cavernous concrete room echoing with the scrape of their boots on the floor. 

‘It was here,’ Bucky said, pointing to long destroyed hulks of metal. ‘They had these machines…but I blew them all up. 

‘Kill everyone. Destroy everything,’ Bucky intoned, his eyes glazing over slightly until Steve put a warm hand on his shoulder.

‘Okay, I’ve been patient, but can I come in _now_ Cap?’ Tony all but whined. ‘There has to be something in there still working to give off that energy reading.’

‘Yeah, all right Tony. You want in on this too, Bruce, or do you want to hang back?’ Steve asked.

There was a pause, then, ‘I’ll watch the readouts for now, once Tony gets in there. Creepy underground bases aren’t really my thing, even if they’re abandoned.’

‘Your call,’ Steve replied. ‘Barton?’

‘I’m good with where I am. Better to have someone else on the outside if Stark’s going in.’

‘I read you.’

The four of them started to spread out through the lab, just checking things over until Tony got there. Natasha skirted the perimeter then started to move into the large empty center of the room. A flash of silver reflected in the corner of Bucky’s vision as she walked forward and before he could even blink he was across the room and pulling her backwards, hard.

Suddenly the tension in the room was high, Sam even had his hand on his gun and was looking around for an enemy. Bucky swallowed and shook his head in apology. 

‘What the hell, Barnes?’ Natasha asked slowly.

Bucky looked down at his feet and slowly scraped one of his boots across the silver circle inset into the floor. It had been mostly covered by debris and dirt over the years, but his memories of it were visceral and strong.

‘Don’t, don’t cross the line.’ He finally managed to say. Natasha nodded, both taking his advice seriously and willing to humor him: the machines were long defunct and nothing was going to happen in that circle ever again. Bucky still felt a chill fear at the thought of something remaining in the circle though, and he felt a memory itching at him that he couldn’t quite place.

‘All right I’m here and now we can get down to business!’ Tony’s voice boomed into the silent room, still a little tense from Bucky’s actions. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ Bucky rolled his shoulders uneasily and turned away from the empty circle. Of all the times for Tony to pick up on an emotional atmosphere…

‘Whatever you do, don’t go in the circle,’ Steve told Tony. Tony had his faceplate up so they could see him raise an eyebrow but he didn’t object. The faceplate dropped and Tony’s voice buzzed on their comms as he started discussing residual readings with Bruce. 

Steve sidled up to Bucky where he now stood against one of the walls. ‘You okay, Bucky?’

Bucky shrugged. ‘Haven’t remembered anything. Just…flashes.’

Steve nodded. 

Something pinged at Bucky’s mind. What he’d just said…about flashes…

Tony’s voice took on a panicked tinge. Their heads snapped to his direction.

‘Bruuuce—are you seeing this?’

‘If you mean that buildup of energies right on top of you…yeah. I see it.’

‘Christmas, it’s Christmas,’ Tony muttered as he turned his head back and forth, trying to scan everything.

A flicker of light appeared in the center of the silver circle.

‘Get back!’ Bucky barked. Tony was outside the circle but he leapt forward to haul him back anyway. 

‘Easy with the goods, Bucky-boy,’ Tony snarked absently, his mind clearly elsewhere.

‘What’s going on, guys?’ Sam spoke up from his position near the door. ‘What is that?’

‘I don’t—‘ Tony started to say, but the flickers grew more intense, almost blinding in their intensity.

‘Guys, the readings I’m getting are highly unstable,’ Bruce spoke up over their comms. ‘I would advise getting out of there.’

‘But we just got here!’ Tony fake whined, already preparing to step back. 

The lights flared brighter and then died back, only to brighten to painful levels, the light appearing to slash a hole in the air itself.

‘What the—there’s a person in there!’ Tony shouted.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Steve whispered. 

Bucky’s instincts screamed at him. A naked girl lay unconscious in the middle of the circle, her right hand manacled to a wire that sparked and danced dangerously. 

_Wait_ , Bucky’s memories screamed. _Wait—_

But the lights weren’t fading. They should be fading, then he could—then they could—

‘A person?’ he dimly heard Bruce shout over the comms. ‘That…can’t be possible, the forces I’m reading would tear someone apart, there’s no way someone could survive in that—‘

‘Bucky!’ Steve shouted, but it was too late. Bucky had leapt across the silver circle, straight into the maelstrom of light. His skin sang with pain and he nearly yelled at the electric intensity reminding him of the chair—

But he was kneeling next to the girl and he had her wrist in one hand and his knife in the other and the manacle was thrumming painfully against his fingers, a live wire burning in agony—

‘Bucky, no!’ He heard faintly across the crackle of insane energies that he could feel tearing him apart from the inside out but he didn’t let himself falter he just had to—

Bucky levered his knife under the manacle, not heeding the blood running down the girl’s arm as he fought for the right angle, the right—

The cuff popped off and the lights seemed to shriek. Bucky couldn’t see through the blinding flare but he picked up the girl and ran as fast as he could toward the edge of the circle, if he could just make it past the line—

Bucky barreled into Steve’s arms and they both went down with a heavy thump, the girl safely between them. 

The lights flared behind them one more time and died, leaving behind a circle swept clean of everything, and a room that was now shocked into silence.

Although not for long.

Bucky felt someone pulling at his shoulder and he let them turn him onto his side with a groan. The girl was still sprawled unconscious on Steve’s chest, and Sam was performing a quick check on her.

‘She’s alive,’ He said calmly, but Bucky could still detect surprise in his voice. ‘Unconscious though, and badly dehydrated. She needs a hospital, stat.’

Sam’s eyes flick over to him. ‘Are you–?’

Bucky raised a thumb. He was fine. 

Tony helped him to his feet as Steve got to his, carefully cradling the girl in his arms.

‘Bucky—‘ Steve said, staring at him, the fear slow to fade from his eyes. ‘Buck—‘

‘I’m okay Steve,’ Bucky said hoarsely as he leaned against Tony for balance. ‘I—I remembered—‘ A cough cut him off and Natasha was quick to hold a bottle of water up to his mouth. Bucky drank deeply then handed it back. 

‘Rose.’ He finally managed to say. ‘Her name is Rose.’


	10. Chapter 10

2016

The last thing Rose ever expected was to wake up again.

No.

The last thing Rose ever expected was for the universe to turn into layers of cotton candy and asparagus, but well.

Waking up was pretty surprising too.

She was in a hospital, but it didn’t look like the base where she’d been a prisoner. Not enough restraints. Or guards.

There was a man sitting in the chair next to her, but he was flipping through a magazine and hadn’t noticed she was awake yet. He didn’t look threatening, so Rose took a chance and shifted in order to sit up a bit more.

‘Hey, you’re awake!’ he said, sitting up and helping her tuck an extra pillow behind her back. ‘How are you feeling?’

Rose worked her throat and tried to say something, but nothing came out. She shook her head and licked her lips. 

‘Hold on a minute, let me get you some water,’ the man shook his head at himself. He walked over to the rolling table where it was pushed against the wall and filled a cup from the pitcher next to it. He held it up to her and Rose drank from the straw gratefully. She pulled back and nodded slightly. He put the cup down on the bedside table.

‘Now let’s try this again. I’m Sam Wilson. You’re Rose, right?’

Rose felt a flash of fear streak across her face. How did he know her name? Was he with the scientists? Where was she? Who was he? Everything was so normal it made what had happened to her seem like a dream—

Was it a dream? Were her parents still alive? What was—

‘Whoa, hey, hey, it’s all right, just breathe with me, okay?’ The man was saying.

Rose realized she was hyperventilating. She sucked down a breath and held it for a second, then exhaled and did the same again until her heart steadied and her lungs stopped seizing. A nurse came into the room at a quick pace but the man waved her off. Surprisingly, she obeyed.

‘Okay, all right, that’s better.’ The man— _Sam_ —sat down next to her again. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you. I know this must all be…a little strange.’

‘You’re telling me,’ Rose croaked. ‘How…how did I get here?’

What she really meant was, _how am I alive?_

‘Well,’ The man said slowly, ‘We really only have half the story, but here’s what we’ve got. Two days ago one of Tony’s satellites picked up a strange energy reading from the south of Lithuania. We all suited up and went to investigate. It turned out to be an old Hydra base but it was destroyed years before. We were in the main lab and there was this flash of light—‘

Rose shuddered, but the man continued on.

‘—We were about to get out of there—the energy was too unstable—when we could see you in the center of it. Bucky jumped into it, cut that manacle off your hand, and pulled you out. The lights disappeared. Stark and Banner said they were something to do with time—some freaky sort of time energy they’d never seen before—which kind of makes sense based on the few bits of information we’ve been able to dig up, and what Bucky’s told us.’

Rose’s head was whirling. She was out? She was free? 

She lifted her right arm and saw a white bandage covering her wrist. She was overtaken by the urge to tear it apart—she needed it off off off—but she clenched her left fist to stop herself. She could feel the ache of pain set deep into her flesh. The bandage was probably on for a reason.

Something nudged at the back of her mind.

‘Bucky?’ Rose’s heart monitor beeped extra loudly as her heart thumped in her chest. ‘That’s…not possible.’

Sam grinned kindly at her. ‘So’s time travel, but here we are…’ he spread his hands.

Rose shook her head. ‘Bucky Barnes died in 1944, right before Captain America. Everybody knows that.’ She’d never told anyone she saw Bucky Barnes in that forest—how did he know? Was all this some elaborate trick—

‘History’s one hell of a liar,’ a voice from the doorway drawled. Rose nearly broke her neck turning her head to see who it was.

She didn’t recognize him at first, his hair was long and his face was worn with heavy cares, but he shifted his weight and half smiled at her and she could see it—see him—

‘Bucky?’ she said weakly. And she remembered the man in the forest hunting enemies—Bucky moved with the same lethal grace as he did. She’d always known at the back of her mind that they were probably the same person, but it never made any sense so she’d tried not to think about it.

‘In the flesh,’ Bucky moved out of the doorway to stand by her side. ‘Doing a little bit better than you at the moment.’ He tilted his head and forced a smile. ‘I’m…I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’ Rose asked, confused. Sam had said he’d rescued her.

‘Maybe save that for a little later,’ Sam cut in. Bucky nodded and ran a hand through his hair, sighing heavily.

‘Long story short, I survived the fall. Hydra found me. Brainwashed me. Made me their killer. Kept me on ice between missions. Scrambled my brains whenever I started to remember things. I…I got loose. Sort of.’ He huffed a laugh. ‘Started to remember who I was. Then Steve caught up to me and…’

He must have caught the blank confusion that Rose was feeling because he stopped. ‘Oh, yeah. Steve’s alive too. They found him frozen in the Arctic and defrosted him.’

‘Shit,’ Sam said next to her. ‘You didn’t know about Captain America? And if I said the name, ‘The Avengers,’ would you know what that was?’

Rose shook her head weakly.

‘What’s the last thing you remember? Before all this?’

Rose closed her eyes. This was going to hurt. ‘Late 2008 my parents and I were traveling in Lithuania. Researching family history. Mom’s side came from Vilnius area mostly. One night—‘ Rose had trouble going on. She swallowed hard. ‘Woke up to a hand over my mouth and my parents shot dead on the hotel floor. Was brought to the base where they put that silver thing on my wrist and kept sending me through time.’ 

Rose forced a laugh. ‘See, they saw me. The scientists. Saw me before I was ever in Lithuania. I appeared in their lab before they ever got their machine to work, so they _knew_ it would work, knew that _I’d_ be the one it would work with. So someone must have seen me in town and known it was time. So they kidnapped me and killed my parents. Time paradox. They already saw me, so it had to be me.’

Rose felt a warm hand cover her own. She opened her eyes to see Sam’s filled with regret and anger on her behalf. ‘Thanks,’ she whispered. He shook his head.

She turned to look at Bucky. He looked…tense. He was breathing a little fast and he was clenching his hands. One of them was…metal?

He saw her looking and shrugged. ‘Lost the arm in the fall.’

‘Ouch,’ was all Rose could think to say. Then she wanted to kick herself, but Bucky actually smiled. 

‘Heh. Yeah,’ he snorted. ‘Ouch. You still have yours, though. Banner and Stark still don’t understand how you’re not dead. Something about the time energies tearing everything apart. I don’t…I have trouble remembering some things. I couldn’t give them a lot of answers.’

‘Which you don’t have to do right away,’ Sam put in, insistent. ‘They’re gonna try and railroad you but they’re grown-ass men. They can be patient and wait until you’re up for it.’

Rose smiled. Sam was nice.

‘I don’t really know all that much. I didn’t speak whatever language most of them spoke, and they only ever asked me questions about what I saw. Which was always the forest.’

‘And me,’ Bucky said hesitantly.

‘Well yeah, but I never told them about you.’ Bucky looked surprised. ‘What? I mean, you were already dead, right? As far as I knew. But you don’t rat out a national hero no matter what. And it wasn’t like they could tell what was happening on my end, so they never knew that I lied.

‘Besides,’ Rose said, leaning back into her pillows a little more, feeling tiredness sweeping over her, ‘It wasn’t like I could tell them all that much about ‘when’ I was most of the time. The forest didn’t exactly have calendars. I could maybe guess the time of year, but that was about it.’

Rose blinked, and her eyes were reluctant to open again. She shook her head a little and forced them open.

‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ Sam told her. ‘Rest. It’ll keep. You’re safe here.’

‘Safe,’ Rose mumbled. ‘Haven’t been safe in a while.’ She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths and was asleep before she knew it.

When she awoke, it was to a room filled with people she didn’t know, along with Sam and Bucky. Most of them were trying to be quiet but with that many people in a room quiet wasn’t really possible.

‘Hey,’ she said, rubbing the sleep sand from her eyes.

Everyone turned to look at her.

‘Good morning, sleepyhead!’ A man with a sharply trimmed goatee spoke up before Sam could. ‘Or should I say good evening? Or does it matter since time is relative anyway—you would know that better than most.’

‘Tony…’ A big blond man said warningly.

Oh, Rose realized. That was Captain America. Steve Rogers. Eek.

Something pinged at her memory. Sam had mentioned a Tony before, and the man did look familiar…Stark. Tony. Stark. Weapons manufacturer turned superhero. Who could ever forget the Iron Man press conference?

She had no idea who everyone else in the room was; the shorter blond man, the redheaded woman, the tousle haired man trying to disappear into a corner. 

Bucky was at her bedside. He passed her a glass of water, no straw this time. She sipped it gratefully.

‘It’s…not funny really,’ She found herself saying, ‘but when things went crazy and I was just bouncing through time…I expected I would die of dehydration.’

‘You almost did,’ said Sam seriously. Bucky hunched in on himself, crossing his arms.

‘Oh.’ Rose nodded. That made sense.

‘Why did things go crazy?’ Tony Stark interrupted. ‘What did it look like? Scrap that—what did traveling through time normally look like? How did they solve the—‘

‘Tony!’ Half the people in the room shouted at him. He pressed his lips together and waggled a finger at them. 

‘You all want to know too!’

‘Yeah, but some of us have manners,’ Steve quirked a lip at him.

‘It’s okay,’ Rose spoke up. ‘I’ll tell you everything I know.’

Tony shooed Sam from the seat next to her bed. Sam went, sighing an apology to Rose. She didn’t really know what to make of all these people, but at least they were nice.

‘I was kidnapped in 2008,’ Rose began, and told her story with as much detail as she could remember. Occasionally she stumbled for the right words—how did you describe the sensation of light almost tearing you apart? Or how to explain the way some of the times she’d appeared in the forest were just…weird?

Occasionally Tony or the rumpled guy would ask her clarifying questions but she knew she wasn’t helping them out much. The scientists hadn’t deigned to share their knowledge with her. When she mentioned the two scientists who were torn apart by the time energies, as well as the man who’d tried to rape her, Tony and the rumpled man nodded knowingly. Everyone else just looked stunned.

Bucky kept her well-supplied with water and occasionally glared at Tony whenever he was being particularly obnoxious. It was kind of sweet, but Rose didn’t really know what to make of it. They’d only met the two times on the other side of time, for just a few minutes. It was nice that he saved her and still felt like protecting her—God! She was grateful! But it was still odd.

She finally finished her story and Tony and the other man—Tony called him Bruce—went out of the room to talk science at each other. The shorter blond man and the redheaded women both nodded at Rose politely before leaving. Rose nodded back, confused, but struggling to maintain normal social dynamics.

The only people remaining in the room were Sam, Steve, and Bucky. 

‘How are you feeling, Rose?’ Sam asked. ‘Getting hungry yet?’

‘Yeah, actually,’ Rose said. ‘Could…I know it’s night time, but could I have pancakes?’

Sam grinned widely. ‘You can have anything you want, girl. Syrup?’

‘A little. But—lots of butter.’ Rose smiled at him. Sam waved casually as he left.

‘Back soon.’

Bucky was still lurking at her bedside and Steve was communicating silently with him through intense eye contact. Eventually he nodded. ‘I’m…going to go somewhere else for a minute. I’m glad you’re feeling better, Rose,’ He said earnestly before he left.

Rose blinked. Wow. Captain America was happy she was feeling better. Wow.

‘Yeah.’ Bucky spoke up. ‘He’s always like that.’ He walked around the bed to take the chair Sam and Tony had been sitting in. ‘Your story…it filled in a lot of the gaps in mine. Made them make more sense. But—I—‘ He stopped, obviously frustrated with himself. ‘I’ve got a lot of story for your gaps too. If you—If you want to hear it.’ He wouldn’t look at Rose, only stared off into the distance. Whatever it was, it looked bad.

‘Okay,’ Rose said. Life had been bad enough, but she would rather know than not know.

‘Okay,’ Bucky breathed out. ‘The first time I saw you was in 1944—‘

Bucky’s story took a while to tell. He did his best to skim past the horrors that Hydra had forced onto him, but they leaked out in his eyes and voice and posture. Rose felt nauseous. Whatever had been done to her was a _vacation_ compared to what had happened to him.

When he told her how her parents had died, Rose couldn’t breathe. She just kept seeing them lying on the carpet, red with blood, as Bucky dragged her away from them.

Bucky plunged on, relating how he had been acquired by a different branch of Hydra and how they’d sent him back to the base to destroy everything—which was why she’d been untethered from time and had nearly died. 

By the end of his story, Bucky’s knuckles were white and his face was pale. His eyes were both dead and in so much pain Rose nearly cried from the sight of them. 

‘I can’t…it’s not enough. Saving you. After all I did. I can say I’m sorry, but I know it doesn’t mean anything. I killed—I—‘ Bucky shook his head and stopped talking.

Rose snuffled back a tear. It hurt. It all hurt. But it wasn’t this man’s fault.

‘If they didn’t have you, someone else would have done it,’ she finally said. Bucky’s head jerked towards her and his eyes were intense. ‘You weren’t you when you did it. And when you were you…you saved me. And even blowing up those machines wasn’t that bad because I never would have gotten out of there alive anyway. So…you cut me loose from time, but you found me and saved me. It’s…not ideal,’ Rose laughed harshly. ‘But it wasn’t your fault.’

Bucky shook his head incredulously. ‘I was the one who did it, it was my hand on the trigger—‘

‘And it was me the scientists saw in their lab before they ever made their machine work!’ Rose fired back. ‘So it’s all my fault for them seeing me and knowing it would only work with me.’

‘No,’ Bucky said stubbornly, ‘that’s not your fault, you didn’t do any of that—‘

‘And neither did you.’ Rose crossed her arms. ‘I hate that it happened. I hate—‘ her voice broke, ‘that my parents are dead. But that’s on Hydra. Not either of us.’

They both looked away from each other for a while, both trying to calm down and find a composure that wasn’t easy to find.

Eventually Sam came back with her pancakes and Rose did her best not to moan at how good they tasted.

‘They fed me,’ she said after devouring half the stack. ‘But it wasn’t good.’

‘I wouldn’t think so,’ Sam said.

Rose sipped some water and considered her situation. ‘So…what now? I mean, how much time did they have me? What’s the date now?’

The room was quiet.

‘June 5th, 2016,’ Bucky finally said.

‘Oh,’ Rose said softly in shock. ‘So I didn’t come back to my own time.’

‘Not…quite.’ Bucky said with a twist to his mouth.

‘But—I’m not dead. So that’s good.’ Rose said, looking for the positive side of things. There weren’t many. ‘I was probably declared dead, though, wasn’t I.’

‘Probably,’ Sam said. ‘But we’ll take care of that for you. Stark’s got more lawyers than he needs.’

‘Right,’ Rose said helplessly. ‘I just—what do I do now?’

‘You’ll come back with us,’ Bucky said firmly. Sam nodded.

‘Yeah, the Tower’s great. You like New York?’

Rose shrugged. ‘It’s New York. What tower? You guys have a tower?’

Sam blinked. ‘Right. Avengers Tower wasn’t really around back in 2008.’

‘No,’ Rose shook her head with a small laugh. ‘I don’t really know what the Avengers are, either.’

Sam leaned close. ‘The Avengers—well. That’s a good story. Just wait until you find out the part with the aliens.’

‘The what?!’

Bucky and Sam shared a laugh, and Rose didn’t know whether they were joking or not, but either way, she knew she was safe again. 

And tomorrow?

Well.

Tomorrow could look after itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I might write a short sequel to this at some point, just a one-shot of Rose adjusting to the world again. Not sure when that will happen, but I'll make a series for it just in case you want to follow along. :)


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